QUESTION: A hammer and a nail cost $1.10, and the hammer costs one dollar more than the nail. How much does the nail cost?

ANSWER: 5 cents.

Source: I got this riddle from a Business Insider article that asked successful executives what questions they ask potential employees during interviews. This is the question that Jeff Zwelling, COO of ZipRecruiter, asks. In the article, Mr. Zwelling says when he asks the question, he is not necessarily looking for the candidate to get the correct answer. He stated that he wants to see the person’s thought process behind the answer that they give.

ANSWER: According to The Grammar Bible, the largest counting number is called a googolplex. A googolplex is 10 raised to the power of googol. A googol is ten raised to the power of 100. To write out a googolplex in numerical form, you have to write the number 1, with a googol of zeroes.

QUESTION: What classic story do the words “Lilliputian” and “Brobdingnagian” originate from?

ANSWER: Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift.

Lilliputian, which means, “very small,” comes from a locality in the tome, Lilliput, where very tiny people lived. Brobdingnagian, which means, “very large,” comes from a geographic location in Gulliver’s Travels, Brobdingnag, where giants resided.